Get up close and personal with a single work of art at this half-hour, hands-on gallery experience geared for families with children ages 5 and up. Sign-up begins 30 minutes before the program at the Information Desk.

Tours and Gallery Talks

Garden TourDaily11:30 am, 12:30 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:30 pmGetty Center

The gardens of the Getty are the focus of this 45-minute tour. Meet the docent outside
at the bench under the sycamore trees near the front entrance to the Museum.

Discover more about Richard Meier's architecture and the design of the Getty Center site in this 45-minute tour. Meet the docent outside at the bench under the sycamore trees near the front entrance to the Museum.

Collection Highlights TourDaily11 amMuseum Galleries, Getty Center

This one-hour tour provides an overview of major works from the Museum's collection. Meet the educator at the Museum Information Desk.

Explore the Getty's collection of 19th-century paintings by artists such as Millet, Monet, and Van Gogh in this one-hour tour. The talk may also include examples of sculpture, photographs, or drawings. Meet the docent at the Information Desk.

Collection Highlights TourDaily1:30 pmMuseum Galleries, Getty Center

This one-hour tour provides an overview of major works from the Museum's collection. Meet the educator at the Museum Information Desk.

Exhibitions

The Life of Art: Context, Collecting, and DisplayDailySouth Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center

From the time an object is made until the day it enters a museum's collection, it may be displayed, used, and perceived in different ways. The Life of Art takes selected objects from the Getty Museum's galleries and encourages visitors to sit down and spend time with them, offering the opportunity to examine them closely to understand how they were made and functioned, why they were collected, and how they have been displayed. Through careful looking, what may be learned about the maker and previous owners of a French gilt-bronze wall light, for example, or the transformation in England of a Chinese porcelain bowl? Close engagement reveals the full lives of these works and why they continue to be collected and cherished today.

Photography has played a central role in Ed Ruscha's artistic practice, most notably in the photobooks he began publishing in 1963. Highlighting important recent acquisitions by the Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute, this exhibition features a selection of prints and materials related to Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1963), Some Los Angeles Apartments (1965), and Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966). Also on view for the first time are contact sheets from his shoot of the Pacific Coast Highway (1974–75), one of the many streets he has documented extensively since 1965. The exhibition offers a concentrated look at Ruscha's engagement with vernacular architecture, the urban landscape, and car culture. Co-organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute, this exhibition is part of the initiative Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A.

The selection of drawings in this exhibition explores the concept of negative space—the unoccupied ground around drawn elements. It elucidates how artists such as Rembrandt, Boucher, and Seurat deliberately left areas of paper blank to create the illusion of light and form, using absence to evoke a sense of presence.

A new acquisition by the Getty Museum's Department of Photographs, Hearsay of the Soul (2012) is a five-channel video installation by celebrated German filmmaker Werner Herzog. It combines the early-seventeenth-century landscape etchings of Dutch artist Hercules Segers with recent scores and a performance by Dutch cellist and composer Ernst Reijseger, resulting in a richly layered work that is at once intimate and epic.

Throughout the Middle Ages, Christians were fascinated by stories about saints, who led extraordinary lives full of mystical events and miraculous occurrences. Saints were depicted in manuscripts experiencing revelatory visions and performing wondrous feats such as healing the sick or raising the dead. Even when their tormentors were performing exceptionally brutal acts—shooting them repeatedly with arrows, for example, or violently beheading them—martyr saints were pictured remaining steadfast in their faith. This exhibition, drawn from the Getty Museum's permanent collection, presents manuscripts that allowed medieval viewers to witness these dramatic narratives and venerate the saints as models of piety.

World premiere of a translation by Joel Agee Directed by Travis Preston A new production by CalArts Center for New Performance and Trans Arts The Titan Prometheus has stolen fire from Mount Olympus, giving rise to human civilization, and is doomed by Zeus to spend eternity chained to a mountaintop, where he rails against all the world's injustices—a highly innovative staging of a faithful new translation at the Getty Villa's Outdoor Theater. Tickets $42; $38 students/seniors.

Learn how to create the illusion of draped and gathered fabric by sketching from ancient sculptures in the galleries. Supplies are provided, and all skill levels are welcome. This is a free program. Sign-up begins 15 minutes before the start of the program at the Tour Meeting Place.

Discover the richness of ancient art in this 30-minute gallery talk that looks in depth at a major work in the Museum's collection. Sign-up begins 15 minutes before the talk at the Tour Meeting Place.

Tea by the SeaSaturdays through December 26, 20151 pm - 3 pmGetty Villa

Enjoy Tea by the Sea, a special dining experience inspired by the Mediterranean herbs, vegetables, and fruits that grow at the Villa. Feast on a Mediterranean-inspired menu of sweet and savory sandwiches and pastries, along with fruits, cheeses, and a varied selection of teas. After tea, you can tour the Villa's authentically re-created first-century Roman gardens with knowledgeable docents, then spend the rest of the afternoon savoring the Villa's exhibitions and permanent collection. $36 per person.

This one-hour tour provides an overview of major works from the Museum's collection. Sign-up begins 15 minutes before the tour at the Tour Meeting Place.

Restaurant Events

Tea by the SeaSaturdays through December 26, 20151 pm - 3 pmGetty Villa

Enjoy Tea by the Sea, a special dining experience inspired by the Mediterranean herbs, vegetables, and fruits that grow at the Villa. Feast on a Mediterranean-inspired menu of sweet and savory sandwiches and pastries, along with fruits, cheeses, and a varied selection of teas. After tea, you can tour the Villa's authentically re-created first-century Roman gardens with knowledgeable docents, then spend the rest of the afternoon savoring the Villa's exhibitions and permanent collection. $36 per person.

In 2003, the J. Paul Getty Museum acquired a collection of over 350 pieces of ancient glass, formerly owned by Erwin Oppenländer. The works on view in Molten Color are remarkable for their high quality, their chronological breadth, and the glassmaking techniques illustrated by their manufacture. The vessels are accompanied by text and videos illustrating ancient glassmaking techniques.

Relief with Antiochos and HeraklesDaily through May 4, 2015Museum, Floor 2, Getty Villa

On loan from the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, a stele honoring Prokleides, a military officer in the Athenian army, is on view at the Getty Villa in a gallery (208) devoted to Religious Offerings. Carved in relief above a public decree are figures of Antiochos, the mythical founder of the tribe Antiochis, and his father, the Greek hero Herakles.